Vermont judge tosses 'natural born citizen' anti-Obama lawsuit

Case filed in wrong court and lacked merit, Vermont ruling states

Nov. 16, 2012

President Obama speaks at the University of Vermont in Burlington in March. A judge this week dismissed a lawsuit filed by former Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Vermont H. Brooke Paige claiming Obama's couldn't serve as president because he wasn't a 'natural born citizen.' / Free Press file

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Free Press Staff Writer

A Vermont judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by a former Republican U.S. Senate hopeful who claimed President Barack Obama was improperly elected in 2008 because he is not a “natural born citizen.”

Judge Robert Bent, in a seven-page decision filed Wednesday at Vermont Superior Court in Montpelier, ruled that the case brought by H. Brooke Paige of the town of Washington was improperly filed in state court instead of federal court, but lacked merit anyway.

“Mr. Paige’s lawsuit, interesting as it is for its extensive historical analysis, has no viability because he has no standing and the court has no jurisdiction,” Bent wrote. “It is dismissed in its entirety.”

Paige sought to have Obama’s name removed from the 2012 Vermont election ballot because he was not a natural-born citizen as required of presidential candidates in the U.S. Constitution.

Paige contended historical papers from the time the Constitution was written defined a natural-born citizen as someone who was born of parents who were American citizens. Obama’s father, now deceased, was a citizen of Kenya.

Bent cited a 2009 decision by an Indiana court that addressed a similar claim and concluded the natural-born-citizen challenge to Obama’s claim on the presidency lacked merit.

“The expression ‘natural born citizen’ is not dependent on the nationality of the parents but reflects the status of a person born into citizenship instead of having citizenship subsequently bestowed,” Bent wrote.

The judge also dismissed Paige’s request to issue a default ruling against Obama because he or his representatives did not file an answer to the lawsuit after it was purportedly received by the White House in September.

Paige ran for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination but lost to John MacGovern by a 3-1 margin in an Aug. 28 primary. MacGovern lost by a similar margin to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Nov. 6.